{"id":6598,"date":"2026-10-15T20:04:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/?p=6598"},"modified":"2026-10-16T08:58:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T12:58:34","slug":"hilary-pearson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/2026\/hilary-pearson\/","title":{"rendered":"Hilary Pearson"},"content":{"rendered":"    \n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-max  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n        \n                    \n                    \n            \n    <div class=\"cu-wideimage relative flex items-center justify-center mx-auto px-8 overflow-hidden md:px-16 rounded-xl not-prose  my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 bg-opacity-50 bg-cover bg-cu-black-50 py-24 md:py-28 lg:py-36 xl:py-48\" style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2026\/10\/HilaryPearson1600-1600x700.jpg); background-position: 50% 50%;\">\n\n                    <div class=\"absolute top-0 w-full h-screen\" style=\"background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0.600);\"><\/div>\n        \n        <div class=\"relative z-[2] max-w-4xl w-full flex flex-col items-center gap-2 cu-wideimage-image cu-zero-first-last\">\n            <header class=\"mx-auto mb-6 text-center text-white cu-pageheader cu-component-updated cu-pageheader--center md:mb-12\">\n\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold mb-2 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] cu-pageheader--center text-center mx-auto after:left-px\">\n                        Hilary Pearson\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                            <\/header>\n        <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    \n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"past-present-and-philanthropy-with-hilary-pearson\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Past, Present, and Philanthropy with Hilary Pearson<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Episode 6 (Season 2) of the PhilanthroThink Podcast (below), MPNL hosts <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2025\/07\/2025June-Bios-of-the-programs-class-13.pdf\" data-type=\"attachment\" data-id=\"5416\">Mandy Pui<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/2024\/mekayla-dionne-student\/\">Mekayla Dionne<\/a> speak with <a href=\"https:\/\/hpearson.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hilary Pearson<\/a>, Director of the Clarus Foundation, about family, service and what gets passed down from one generation of givers to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Past, Present, and Philanthropy with Hilary Pearson\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NEeZHdMmJRc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"hilary-pearson-grew-up-in-a-family-woven-into-canadian-public-life\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hilary Pearson grew up in a family woven into Canadian public life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her grandfather was Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, and her mother, Senator Landon Pearson, championed children\u2019s rights &#8212; and her father, Geoffrey Pearson, was a diplomat. In the podcast, she remembers a childhood spent moving between France, Mexico, India and Ottawa, and watching her grandfather light the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in 1967. Service, she says, was never something her family talked about. It was simply what they did. The quality she sees in all of them, and hopes she shares, is curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"508\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2026\/10\/HilaryPodcastPhotoForFirstPost400.png\" alt=\"A laptop beside a mug of coffee depicts three women talking during a podcast.\" class=\"wp-image-6606\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7874101136552063;width:619px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2026\/10\/HilaryPodcastPhotoForFirstPost400.png 400w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2026\/10\/HilaryPodcastPhotoForFirstPost400-320x406.png 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She explains how she and her husband, Michael Sabia, created the Clarus Foundation, named for the Latin word for light, and how it&#8217;s fed her own curiosity as much as it&#8217;s supported others. She also tells the story of a connection that goes back a generation: Michael\u2019s mother, feminist leader Laura Sabia, famously vowed to march a million women on Ottawa unless Prime Minister Pearson created a Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Today, Hilary and Michael support young women at Brock University through the Laura Sabia Entrepreneurial Awards, and have long backed the Loran Scholars Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To close, Hilary leaves a challenge for the next guest and for every donor listening. With an enormous transfer of wealth under way, too much money is sitting in bequests and donor-advised funds (DAFs), instead of reaching organizations now. How, she asks, can we get past \u201cslow philanthropy\u201d and accelerate giving over the next five years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hear or watch the podcast on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NEeZHdMmJRc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube<\/a>, or listen on the &#8220;PhilanthroThink&#8221; podcast on <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/7st0ZGePevSIH9SIZ1IDtI?si=18b7761a2c134e67\">Spotify<\/a> or Apple Podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you to IG Private Wealth Management for a grant to make the PhilanthroThink Podcast series possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">00:00 Introduction to PhilanthroThink<br>01:53 Growing up with Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and a family of service<br>04:08 Centennial year and seeing Canada from abroad<br>07:44 Family lessons beyond the titles<br>13:47 Curiosity as a family trait<br>15:25 When giving became personal<br>20:00 The story behind her Claris Foundation<br>24:09 Laura Sabia, Lester Pearson and a family connection<br>31:18 A gift that keeps on giving<br>32:51 Advertisement: A word from IG Private Wealth Management<br>34:49 What does a world that uses AI for good look like?<br>38:11 Slow philanthropy and accelerating giving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Past, Present, and Philanthropy with Hilary Pearson In Episode 6 (Season 2) of the PhilanthroThink Podcast (below), MPNL hosts Mandy Pui and Mekayla Dionne speak with Hilary Pearson, Director of the Clarus Foundation, about family, service and what gets passed down from one generation of givers to the next. Hilary Pearson grew up in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":6600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[39,121,1206],"tags":[49,1398,191,1393,772,1397,1392,68,1394,1396,69,1093,1395,70,82,17,106,81,1208,18,19],"class_list":["post-6598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-philanthrothink","category-podcast","tag-carleton","tag-clarus-foundation","tag-dpnl","tag-geoffrey-pearson","tag-hilary-pearson","tag-landon-pearson","tag-laura-sabia","tag-leadership","tag-lester-b-pearson","tag-mandy-pui","tag-masters","tag-mekayla-dionne","tag-michael-sabia","tag-mpnl","tag-panl","tag-philanthropy","tag-philanthrothink","tag-pnl","tag-podcast","tag-school-of-public-policy-and-administration","tag-sppa"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6614,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions\/6614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mpnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}